


we set fire to our homes, walking barefoot in the snow

by bronson



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 18:27:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bronson/pseuds/bronson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anastasia/Romanovs AU. In the aftermath of revolution, the lost princess is found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we set fire to our homes, walking barefoot in the snow

**Author's Note:**

> without the vengeful rasputin and his trusty sidekick. and the magic. without the magic. started with [this](http://stannisbaratheon.tumblr.com/post/42681082812/can-i-just-appreciate-the-parallels-between), how did it end up like this. it was only a text post. _it was only a text post._

She feels like she’s been here before.

_Impossible, no one’s been here for years._

Dust float about her worn shoes as she takes one reluctant step after another, on marble floors that have long outlived their purpose.

The ballroom yawns overhead. She can barely see the ceiling. Sunlight filters in from the boarded windows. The scant light glitters on the chandeliers that hung quietly like stone vultures on the Notre Dame. She’s seen pictures of that church, on books that have been handed down from orphan to orphan, lovingly kept in the small library where she’d stayed during her childhood.

They could only read a book once a week. There were too many children and too few books, and all of them needed to read. Somehow. To learn little bits and pieces of things they felt they needed to learn, yet never truly understood why.

 _I’ll never get out of here,_ Shireen once thought to herself, as the snow piled up on the windowsills. Her breath fogged as she breathed, burrowed deep underneath her thin blanket.

But that’s not true, she thinks now. She’s here, isn’t she?

 

* * *

 

They’d called this the Winter Palace.

She’d first heard about it muttered, like fragile glass, between nuns passing by the girls’ ward. It had been the dead of night and Shireen hadn’t been asleep like she was supposed to. It rather felt like overhearing a secret no one else was supposed to know.

When she was much older, she’d thought herself ridiculous for thinking that. Everyone knows about the Winter Palace.

Everyone knows what happened there.

 

* * *

 

St. Petersburg had not been far away. She could walk there, if she’d wanted to. And she had.

Many times she’d look past the creaking hinges of the tall gates that surrounded the orphanage. Past the snowdrift and the perpetual winter, she’d wonder where St Petersburg was.

Every now and then a postman would come by, deliver week-old newspapers for the nuns, a spare booklet or two salvaged from abandoned homes in the city. Shireen would catch a whiff of smoke and sandalwood whenever they passed. Their hands black with what she’d thought to be soot, but was actually coal.

Coal and dust; hands fresh from exhuming the remains of a city half-dead.

“Is St Petersburg full of ghosts, you think?” she’d asked Sofia, the girl who’d kept the bed beside her.

Sofia had laughed. “That’s silly.”

“Is it?”

“Well—“ then Sofia’d looked uncertain, laughter tapering at the earnestness that pinched Shireen’s face. “—Well I suppose so. The postman’s not a ghost, is he?”

Then Shireen shrugged. “I suppose not.”

“But… But there could be ghosts.”

Immediately, Shireen had perked up. “You think so?”

“A lot of people died there, yes?”

Shireen nodded. She knew that. Everyone knew that.

She dreamed of them that night, and for many nights after. They dressed in humble clothes like hers, mismatched, patched, and worn thin. They stood tall and grand, with proud faces that didn’t look like anyone she knew.

But she saw them nonetheless, and they danced.

 

* * *

 

At eighteen, she left the orphanage. All children leave eventually. Sofia’d left the year before, gone to Moscow the nuns said.

Shireen thought of following her, but Moscow felt farther away than St Petersburg did.

As soon as she entered the city, however, the snow had started falling heavily down her head. She looked for a place to stay, but it seemed like if there was anything colder than the weather, it was the people. With their stern shoulders, hunched over; their heads bowed to weather out the worst of the winter breeze.

Finally, she’d bumped into a cleaning lady herding her children.

“Ex—“ she dodged the broom the lady held, propped up on her round shoulder. “Excuse me?”

The lady grunted, impatient. “What?”

Shireen hesitated. She was unused to anything that wasn’t the nuns’ friendly, gentle manner.

“Well?”

“I was wondering if you—knew of a place where I could… stay? For the night?” Shireen tightened the scarf around her neck, the frayed ends looped tight around her fingers. “I’m new to the city.”

“New?” at once, the lady raked her eyes over her.

Shireen bristled. She was nothing to look at. The nuns had always said it was a miracle she hadn’t been swept by the wind. She’d grown tall, but willowy. She wasn’t pretty—she knew that too. She didn’t look strong either, even though she could make several trips carrying buckets of water to refill the baths. Her prominent ears could only be hidden by her long black hair. Sofia used to make fun of them. _Elephant ears, elephant ears!_

The lady’s appraisal done, Shireen saw no hope in the disapproving look on her lined face. She was already nodding when the lady started to shake her head. Her quiet _thank you_ unheard as the lady went on her way, the herd of children following behind her, somber in their determination to stop shivering.

The deeper she went into the city, the colder the people got. Until fewer and fewer people looked at her when she spoke. More and more huddled close together, half-gloved hands held in front of them at scant barrels of makeshift hearths.

The city square was no better. It was as wide as it was densely occupied by stalls that didn’t seem to sell anything better than the dour clothes worn by everyone else.

She passed them by, looking around for someone to meet her eyes. Many did. Business was business, after all, and in a city like St Petersburg, everyone’s money was as good as the next person’s. Even a quiet, wide-eyed girl like her.

“Hey, need a new scarf?”

She shook her head.

The stall beside it: “New gloves?”

And on it went.

_New watch, new earrings? Pearl? Diamond? Gold?_

She shook her head at all of them, and their interest in her disappeared just as quickly.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” said a man, barrel-chested and heavily bearded. He had a watch in his hands. It didn’t look new, but he handled it with such care that Shireen could guess it was worth more  than it looked.

Shireen nodded. She shivered as the wind caught in her hair.

The man—he didn’t look old, Shireen thought, but he moved with a tiredness that reminded her of someone who was—chuckled. A deep rumble in his chest that was no warmer than the snow that had caught in her collar.

“You take care, you hear?”

“Y-yes,” she muttered. Her teeth clacked.

“Where did you come from, girl?”

“St-St George’s orphana—“

Recognition sparked in the man’s eyes. “The orphanage, yes! Yes, I know that place!”

Shireen mustered a smile despite the shudder in her jaw. “Do you?”

“My lad Ivan—he helped one of your nuns bring a cart of milk up there. Long walk, he said.”

Shireen nodded. “It is—was. It was.”

The man smiled. “You need a place to stay?”

“Y-yes please,” she said, nodding more vigorously. “I’ve been trying to find one but—“

The man clicked his tongue. “Not a lot of inns around—most of them are full by now.”

Shireen frowned. “Oh.”

“But—“ he looked around, checking to see if anyone was listening in.

Shireen looked around as well, and found no one.

The man leaned forward. Almost whispering, he said, “You try and find Devan, yes?”

“Devan?”

“Good lad, him, he takes in strays like you,” the man chuckled again. “He lives up there in the Palace.”

Shireen perked up. “The _Winter_ Palace?”

“Aye, no other Palace in this city but that one. Hard to miss too. But you’ll have to sneak in, yeah? The police aren’t too keen on the place being a shelter for no one.”

“Alright.”

“You understand?”

Shireen nodded. “Yes. Devan. Winter Palace.”

The man smiled. He reached into the curtains of his stall, rummaging for something Shireen couldn’t see from where she stood. After a moment, he brought out a pair of gloves. They looked newer than the ones the man was wearing.

“Here,” he handed them to her. “You take care now.”

Shireen stared, wide-eyed, taking the gloves from him with as much care as he handled the watch he cradled in his hand.

“Is this for me?” she asked him.

The man smiled again. She was starting to like him. “A piece of luck for you. If you’re planning to live in this city, it wouldn’t be easy.”

Shireen quickly shed her own gloves, tattered through until it had more holes than cloth. She tugged on the new gloves. She sighed happily, a grin splitting her face. They rather felt like warm hands clutching hers.

The man watched her, fondness warming the lines around his eyes. “What’s your name, girl?”

“Shireen,” she told him.

He offered his hand and Shireen, with her new gloves and a warm smile on her face, shook it with hers.

“Name’s Sal.”

His eyes lingered on her face for a moment. “Shireen, you said?”

She nodded.

Sal hummed thoughtfully. “You know a princess was named that. Princess Shireen—Czar’s only daughter.”

Shireen knew that story, of the last Czar and his family.

Everyone knew that story.

She and Sofia used to think of themselves as princesses, hidden away under their blankets. They went to bed fantasizing about foot soldiers waiting for them outside the door, and handmaidens sleeping on the other bunk beds in the ward. When it'd gotten dark, and their candles burned low, it was easy to pretend.

Sal turned wistful, and if Shireen looked closer, she thought he might even look sad. “Devan’s dad—he’s a good friend of mine.” The smile he mustered was not as warm. Rather like a weight that pulled down his lips the more he spoke. “ _Was_ a good friend of mine. He served the royal family, you know? Didn’t see him for years when he did. But we used to be thick as thieves, he and I.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “Good man. Well—used to be. His lad Devan, he’s the only one I see nowadays.” Then he shrugged, but the sadness hadn’t left his face. “Shireen’s dead now, like her mother and father. Been dead for years.”

Everyone knew that story too.

“Well,” Sal said. “You run along, princess. And good luck." 

 


End file.
